Thousands of Channel Islanders ‘offline’ for six hours

Monday 13 July 2020

Engineers had to work through the night to get thousands of Channel Islanders back online after a JT outage hit internet, mobile and landline services, including 999 numbers, ATMs and airport check-ins.

Around two thirds (65.4%) of islanders were affected when systems went down around 18:55, as well as JT customers in Guernsey.

Service announcement; We can confirm that our engineers have identified an issue impacting a number of our broadband, landline and mobile customers and are working hard to fix this. We will update you as soon as this has been resolved. Thank you for your ongoing patience.

— JTHelp (@JTGlobalHelp) July 12, 2020

Services returned to normal around 00:55 this morning (Monday 13 July).

This was followed by a 20-minute outage at 04:00, but this only affected around a quarter of subscribers.

The cause of the fault remains unclear, but JT says it is investigating. 

Critical Internet #outage ended: #JTGlobal in #Jersey since 6:55 PM BST resolved after 6 hours, impacting #SaintHelier

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https://t.co/DWSFIrxa1L#jtglobalhelp #JTGlobaldown #JTGlobaloutage #JTGlobalup #Jèrri #night pic.twitter.com/fGqhK2fI3m

— Fing Internet Alert (@outagedetect) July 13, 2020

The critical six-hour failure hit the Emergency Services, with islanders unable to call 999 via a landline. 

However, Police reminded islanders on Facebook that it remained possible to do so via mobile. 

We are experiencing issues with JT landlines, you won’t be able to call 999 from your JT landline at present. JT are looking into this to rectify the problem. You can still phone 999 from a mobile phone. At the moment we believe the issue is just with JT. We’ll keep you updated.

— States of Jersey Police (@JerseyPolice) July 12, 2020

New Era Vets were also unable to operate their emergency line, so instead advised those with animals in urgent need of assistance to visit the practice directly.

The JSPCA, which also operates an emergency service for animals, experienced similar issues and advised islanders to contact them via Facebook.

Islanders reported being able to use cash points or card machines on social media, while others bemoaned difficulties with the lights and heating in their internet-controlled ‘smart homes’.

Passengers waiting to board a flight last night were also impacted due to resulting difficulties with the check-in process. They were held outside security while airport staff tried to find a solution.

Pictured: The airport's check-in process was affected. 

JT’s Managing Director Daragh McDermott this morning commented: “I’d like to apologise to our customers for the problem with JT services yesterday evening.

"JT’s networks are now working normally again after the problem, which affected landlines, mobiles and internet services in Jersey and Guernsey. Our engineers got to work immediately, and made sure services were running again as quickly as they could."

Pictured: JT's Managing Director, Daragh McDermott, apologised for the outage.

He added: “We are now isolating the root cause and putting measures in place to prevent it happening again."